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U.S. charges accused Mango crypto manipulator with fraud
A man suspected of attempting to steal roughly $110 million in October by manipulating the Mango Markets cryptocurrency exchange has been charged criminally with commodities fraud and manipulation by U.S. authorities.
Avraham Eisenberg allegedly used trading in futures connected to Mango's cryptocurrency token MNGO to extract $110 million in cryptocurrencies from other investors' accounts with no apparent plan to pay back the money, according to a lawsuit made public on Tuesday in Manhattan federal court.
Eisenberg could not be contacted right away for comment, and it is unknown whether he is represented by counsel.
Mango is a decentralized cryptocurrency exchange hosted by Mango DAO that enables investors to trade bitcoin assets using leverage, lending, borrowing, swapping, and swapping.
According to the complaint filed on December 23 and authored by FBI Special Agent Brandon Racz, Eisenberg utilized two accounts simultaneously on October 11 to acquire and sell futures based on the relative prices of MNGO and the stablecoin USD Coin (USDC).
According to the accusation, Eisenberg fraudulently inflated the value of MNGO in relation to USDC by acting on both sides of the transaction, enabling him to borrow and then withdraw $110 million in various cryptocurrencies.
Soon after starting talks with Eisenberg, Mango came to a $67 million settlement.
A forum post at the time said that "all mango depositors will be made whole," and that token owners who support the settlement promise not to "pursue any criminal investigations or freezing of monies after the tokens are handed back."
According to the lawsuit, Eisenberg assumed ownership of the trade and tweeted on October 15 that "the exchange this took occurred on, Mango Markets, fell bankrupt."
The developer team may not have completely anticipated all the effects of setting parameters the way they are, but I think all of our activities were lawful open market actions utilizing the protocol as intended, he said in another tweet.
Mango couldn't be contacted right away for comment. Requests for comment from the Manhattan office of U.S. Attorney Damian Williams were not immediately fulfilled.
Eisenberg is the defendant in U.S. v. Eisenberg, case number 22-mj-10337 in the Southern District of New York.
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